This is a story I wrote this morning. I wanted to try writing in voice of a non-participant narrator like Junot Díaz's Yunior. It's also a young male narrator and his voice is rather crude. Please don't continue if you don't like swearing. I don't really like the ending. I suck at writing endings and titles so I'm open for suggestions! Let me know what you think!


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           Well, shit, Krista thought. Grandma Beatrice was dead. That was for sure. What to do now?

            How did she know Grandma Beatrice was dead? Well, Krista’s no doctor, but that old broad was cold—dead cold ha!—and had been knocking at death’s door for, jeez, like, four years now. And because Jangles, her chocolate lab tried to get in bed and roll around with Grandma B. He only does that with mounds of poop and dead things.

It was time. The Hainy family had been ready for this (like I said, ready for, seriously, like, four years), but why, oh why, did it have to happen when the rest of Krista’s family was in Acapulco for spring break? Bitch owed some bad karma or something, I guess. Krista thought life sucked simply because she didn’t get to go to Acapulco because she had to take a class with a volunteer component over spring break (which, as her mom said, would be so great!—they wouldn’t have to find a house sitter or a nurse to sit with Grandma B). Yes, every twenty-one year old’s dream: changing her 103-year-old great grandma’s potty pad and poop bag.

Krista didn’t even know if Grandma B had been a decent person. She had no more emotional attachment to the woman who had been mute and sleeping for the whole four years she lived with the Hainys than she would with, say, a pet gold fish. Grandma B had Alzheimer’s. She had lived with my family in Oakland before that. Damn am I glad she didn’t kick it then. Otherwise I may have been the unlucky great-grandchild googling what to do with a dead body.

Grandma B had been crazy the whole time she lived with us. So, really, none of us kids knew her. When she started sleeping all the time and the doctors said she would die soon, we drove her to Salt Lake City, met my mom’s sister, Krista’s mom, and exchanged Grandma with them. Really, they lucked out. We had her when she was running around with nothing but a crotchet shawl on. Yep, old, saggy, grandma boobs at my seventh grade birthday party. All Krista saw of Grandma was that funny way her dentures popped out when she snored. It was like honk, shooo HORSE TEETH! Honk, shooooo HORSE TEETH! Kind of endearing really. Well, I guess they had the shit bag and stuff, but she had that when we had her too.

Anyway, Krista called her parent’s hotel.

“Well, are you sure she’s dead? Oh, God, Krista, why didn’t you call the ambulance?” her mom asked.

“Oh, she’s dead, Mom. Jangles tried to get in bed with her.”

“Don’t call an ambulance. That’s two thousand dollars. She has no pulse?” Krista’s dad asked.

“No, she’s dead. Dead, dead, dead.”

“Well, she can’t stay in the house,” her dad said.

“No, please, God no.” Krista shuddered. She opened up a new tab on her Internet Explorer, navigating away from her Facebook page. “I don’t know. When I Google what to do with a dead body, it says to call 911. Oh, wait that seems to be with bodies you, like, stumble upon, not one in your house.”

“Don’t look that up online! Someone out there is going to see that and think we’ve murdered someone!” Krista’s dad said. “You could just take her to the mortuary. Or maybe someone has to pronounce her dead. She may have to go to the hospital. Hmmm—” Click.

The line went dead.

“Dad? Mom? Hey! What the hell?! What am I going to do with her?” Krista yelled into the phone.

No one responded.

She tried to call the hotel back.

She tried for hours. No luck. She discovered her unlucky situation at 8:17am when she went to check the pee pad and crap bag and give Grandma B her morning smoothie. Not a fun job. You pretty much just pour it in her mouth, while she smacks at the bottle like a baby bird. Fricking messy.

Now, I’m not saying my cousin is a tool. But good God, this is dumb and probably another reflection of her poor karma. If my parents were out of town and I had a dead body in my house, I’d say screw you guys, you can pay the fee and call an ambulance. There’s no way in Hell I’d sling Grandma B over my shoulder, carry her out to the car, buckle her dead-ass in and drive to the hospital. No way.

Well, Krista had it worse than that. And the girl did it. You see, Krista nannies in New York City and goes to school there. She thinks she’s real hippie or something. Artsy. Chick doesn’t have a car. Didn’t even learn how to drive one. No learner’s permit, no driver’s ed, nothing. And her parents were ok with that. The way she got around Omaha, and gets those kids around New York is walking or biking. She even flew her damn bike home from New York. She has two buggies for it too. One at home for her dog so she can pedal him over to the dog park and one in New York so she can pedal the kiddies over to the kid park.

Maybe it’s because I grew up California and in Nebraska they’re just a different breed, I don’t know, but it blows my mind that Krista had the balls to do this. She dragged Grandma B downstairs and out the their garage—shouldn’t have been a huge feat, I’m sure she only weighed, like, 80 pounds. I’ve flipped three hundred pound lineman. Krista’s not that big though. She dragged old, stinky, saggy.

Let me reiterate, it’s not that I’m an ass. It’s just that I don’t have the best memories of Grandma B. I only knew her as wagglily tits flying, dentures popping and a crap bag to change. She was probably a remarkable broad before she went bonkers.

Anyway, Krista didn’t listen to Google. If you learn nothing else from this story, hear this: ALWAYS LISTEN TO GOOGLE. She put Grandma B in the buggy. Just like Jangles or those New York kids. Just wrapped her up in a blanket, doobie style, and tucked her in there. Do you have some cargo there? Oh, no, it’s just my dead grandma. At least she didn’t put her in a suitcase like all those dumbasses you read about trying to take dead dogs on the subway and then getting the suitcases stolen. Dumbasses.

She got Grandma B all situated, laced up her tennis shoes, clipped on her helmet and took off toward the hospital.

Two miles. The hospital was two miles away. Krista rides, like, 50 miles for fun on the weekends. She’s also traveled all over New York City with those two stupid kids in a buggy, but go figure, the time she’s transporting a dead body, she encounters a glitch.

Actually, maybe that’s not so bad. I mean, Grandma was dead. By this time it was, like, five. Rush hour in Omaha (haha! I know, right? Sounds kind of ridiculous, but that’s what Aunt Pam said when she called to tell us what happened). Krista gets cut off by some idiot driver while going uphill. She slammed on her breaks and swerved to the curb, ramped up it, and in doing so, the buggy tips to it’s side and Krista and her bike run into a retaining wall. Smooth. But really, like I said, maybe it’s not so bad that it was Grandma in there and not some kids.

Some dude sees Krista get run off the road and decides to act all Good Samaritan and pulls over to help her.

“Miss, are you ok? Oh, gosh you don’t have kids in there do you?” he asked.

“Uh, I’m fine. Fine, really. You don’t have to help me. I’m not going far. It’ll be ok.”

$%^@, !^&*, damn! Expletives fired around Krista’s brain like pop rocks. The dude was hot, I guess, according to her, and her she was not only running into a retaining wall, but she was also toting around her dead great grandmother and letting her bounce around and almost spill out into the street in the middle of “rush hour.”

The dude tried to set the buggy upright for Krista.

“No, please, everything is ok,” she said, trying to block him from seeing what was inside. “I just need to go.”

“Hey, is everything alright?” A woman her mom’s age had pulled up now too.

“It’s fine. I’m ok. I have to go, thank you,” Krista tried to tell her.

Bitches and hoes, how am I going to get away, she thought. Well, at least I’m sure she did. Or something like that.

Krista turned toward the woman. “Really, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

“Holy shit!” the dude shouted. “What’s in here?” He was looking in the buggy.

Krista had wrapped Granny up enough that none of her was showing, however, the body was wrapped up like a freaking body-sized, mummy joint, what else could it be?

“It’s, it’s nothing. I really have to go.” Krista jumped back in between Dude and Grandma.

“Is that a freaking body?” he asked.

“No! God! No, it’s, it’s a rug. I’m taking it to my grandma’s house,” Krista said.

“Does your rug have wispy, white fringe?” the woman asked.

God, freaking holy shitballs, poop on a stick, dicks and buttholes!!! Krista thought. Freaking old lady hair.

“Oh, my God! Teeth! Those are teeth! There are teeth in there!” Dude cried.

Grandma B’s goddamn dentures had popped out in the crash.

Krista grabbed the buggy, flipped it back on it’s wheels, yanked her bike off the ground, jumped on and sped off. All in the lightening speed of someone who is fleeing for their life. Like when moms have super human strength to, like, lift cars off their babies and such.

When she pulled up to the hospital, she didn’t know where to park. Imagine that, no bike racks at the emergency room. She hitched her bike up to a light pole in the parking lot, locked it all up real nice, and then started to unzip the buggy.

Tits, she thought (or something like that, I’m sure). Now how am I going to carry this blunt-rolled, dead grandma into the hospital?

She decided to leave Grandma B out there and maybe just tell someone so that she didn’t cause a panic walking in dragging a body since she couldn’t carry Grandma B. She walked in as casually as possible and approached the help desk.

“Um, hello,” Krista said to the beaming receptionist. Krista tugged on her long black ponytail, holding the end in her hands and twisting it around in her fingers. The receptionist just smiled, vaguely reminding Krista of Grandma B’s horse teeth. “You see, my great grandma is really old. Was really old. And she’s been dying for a long time. A long time. We knew it was going to happen. And today she did. Or last night, really. I went to change her and feed her this morning and she was really cold. Really dead.”

The smile started to fade from Horse Lady.

“My parents are gone and my dad didn’t want me to call an ambulance because it’s expensive, so I brought her here. Is that ok? She’s in the parking lot.”

Just then, the police burst into the hospital. “Omaha PD. Did someone come in here on a bicycle?” a muscular officer said, marching toward the desk, taking off his sunglasses.

Krista unclipped her bike helmet. “I did.”

“Folks reported a bicycle accident with some girl towing what they suspected to be an old lady’s body,” the officer said.

“Um, yeah. Like I was saying. My great grandma has Alheimer’s, she’s been dying forever; and well, she finally died. I didn’t know what to do with her. My parents are in Mexico. I don’t drive.”

“You brought a body here on a bicycle?” Horse Woman asked.

“No,” Krista said (as if that were just ridiculous!). “I brought her here in the buggy that attaches to my bike. You know, like kids ride in.”

“And she’s just sitting out there in the parking lot right now?” the woman asked.

“Some of our officers are with the body now,” the police dude said.

“I just thought I needed someone to, like, pronounce her as dead. I didn’t know where else to go,” Krista said.

“Oh, she’s dead alright,” the cop said. “Dentures must’ve popped out when you took your spill though.”

“You crashed your bike on the way here with a body dragging behind it?” Horse Lady asked. Her smile was gone, but her mouth still gaped open, revealing even more of her teeth.

“It’s the first time I’ve ever had a mishap with my bike. And really? She’s dead. What’s it going to hurt her?” Krista snapped.

A medical team went out to pronounce Grandma B as dead. Yep, as a doornail. Krista got to ride home and the mortuary came to pick up the body.

Grandma B had apparently wanted to be buried in Mound City, Kansas. Who the hell names a town Mound City? Mound of shit that’s for sure. Mound of nothingsville. Anyway, when she was sane she wanted to be buried there with her husband who died, like, thirty years ago. Maybe Mound wasn’t such a mound of crap when they lived there and picked out their burial spots.

When we got there for the funeral, Grandma B’s dentures were intact and I bet they removed the shit bag. Let her rest with a little dignity. Just another mound in Mound City’s ground.